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Trump says overturning Roe v Wade ‘certainly possible’ with Amy Coney Barrett – live
One sort of polling hasn’t moved much in the last week – majorities of US voters think the winner of the presidential election should pick the next supreme court justice, rather than the current president who is down in the polls and, with the help of Republicans who also face losing the Senate, jamming through a hardline conservative pick before 3 November.
The New York Times and Siena College are out with a survey today, and it says 56% think the next president should make the pick.
Of that pick – here is Stephanie Kirchgaessner’s look at People of Praise, the secretive Catholic group to which Amy Coney Barrett belongs, of interest given a) how progressives fear her faith may colour her decisions on healthcare, contraception and abortion and b) how others respond that her faith should have nothing to do with her fitness, or otherwise, for high public office.
Donald Trump has said it “is certainly possible” that Amy Coney Barrett will be part of a supreme court decision overturning Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling which made abortion legal in the US.
“She is certainly conservative in her views, in her rulings, and we’ll have to see how that all works out but I think it will work out,” Trump told Fox & Friends Weekend in an interview broadcast on Sunday, asked about whether Barrett, if confirmed, would be part of a 6-3 conservative-liberal ruling “on a life issue”.
“It’s certainly possible. And maybe they do it in a different way. Maybe they’d give it back to the states. You just don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Progressives and Democrats fear the Indiana appeals judge’s strict Catholicism and conservative views will colour any ruling on abortion rights. They also worry about the Affordable Care Act, which provides healthcare to millions of Americans. A Republican attempt to strike it down is due before the court on 10 November.
Republicans in the Senate are rushing to confirm Barrett before the presidential election on 3 November. Democrats oppose the timetable and are backed by extensive public polling which shows majorities saying the winner of the election should choose the replacement for the liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died aged 87 last week.
But Democrats have few options when it comes to trying to stop or even merely delay Barrett’s confirmation.
Trump has nominated two conservatives to the court already but it has not always ruled in his favour, with justices recently upholding LGBTQ rights in a discrimination case and going against the administration on immigration. The president told Fox he had been “surprised by some of the rulings that we’ve already had over the last year”.
“You know, you think you know somebody and then you get rulings federal a little bit different than you think could happen,” he said. “So you never know what’s going to happen. Mostly, I’m looking for somebody that can interpret the constitution as written. We say it all the time and she [Judge Amy Coney Barrett] is very strong on that. And it’ll be very interesting.”
Trump was famously reported to have said he was “saving” Barrett “for Ginsburg”. But he told Fox that in meetings with Barrett before her unveiling on Saturday, he “didn’t discuss certain concepts and certain things.
“And some people say you shouldn’t. I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t. But I decided not to do it. And I think it gives her freedom to do what she has to do. She has to make rulings. But I think she’s going to make a lot of people very proud.”
The supreme court fight is one thing, of course, and the debate and the election another. Another, lest we forget, is the coronavirus pandemic, which as of this writing has infected more than 7m people in the US and killed more than 200,000. There was of course no social distancing and not much mask-wearing at the White House for the introduction of Amy Comey Barrett, nor at Donald Trump’s Pennsylvania rally later on.
Worrying reports of cases ticking back up in states which relatively speaking got a handle on things are common. Here’s the AP on New York:
More than 1,000 New Yorkers tested positive for Covid-19 in a single day, the first time since 5 June the state has seen a daily number that high.
The number of positive tests reported daily in the state has been steadily inching up, a trend possibly related to businesses reopening, college campuses reopening and children returning to school. Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Saturday there were 1,005 positive cases on the previous day, Friday, out of 99,953 tests, for a 1% positive rate.
From late July through the start of September the state was seeing an average of around 660 people test positive per day. In the seven-day period that ended Friday, the state had averaged 817 positive tests per day.
Cuomo aide Gareth Rhodes stressed that the new positive-case number came out of nearly 100,000 tests, compared to about 60,000 tests daily in June.
“Is there cause for concern? As long as Covid is here, yes,” Rhodes posted on Twitter, noting that certain ZIP codes in Brooklyn and the lower Hudson Valley have seen increases in new cases and hospital admissions. “Key is ensuring these clusters don’t spread into neighboring/other ZIPs.”
Rhodes also noted improving numbers among college-aged people, suggesting better compliance on campuses.
Here’s a report from Nina Lakhani and Amanda Holpuch, on the challenges facing a key New York industry: restaurants.
Joe Biden, we are told, will speak about the supreme court at 12.15pm ET today, from Wilmington, Delaware.
Joe Biden. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
Last week, in the aftermath of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, the Democratic candidate spoke powerfully, appealing to Republican senators not to rush a replacement through.
That didn’t work, and yesterday, during the unveiling of Amy Coney Barrett in the White House Rose Garden, Biden perhaps previewed today’s remarks and the thrust of his campaigning on the issue as he focused on highlighting the danger he and other progressives say the new justice will, if confirmed, pose to healthcare access.
CNN reports that Barrett could be confirmed by mid-October. Election day is 3 November. On 10 November, the court is due to hear yet another Republican attempt to destroy the Affordable Care Act, the Obama-era law which extended health insurance cover to millions of less well-off Americans.
Donald Trump, meanwhile, has spoken to Fox & Friends host Pete Hegseth about his supreme court pick, in an interview broadcast on Sunday.
“Mostly, I’m looking for somebody that can interpret the constitution as written,” Trump said. “We say it all the time and [Judge Amy Coney Barrett] is very strong on that.”
He also bragged about his undoubted legacy, a makeover of the federal court system orchestrated by Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, and to some extent by Don McGahn, Trump’s first, beleaguered but resilient White House counsel.
“By the end of the term, we’ll have almost 300 federal judges and court of appeals judges, which is a record. So we will have had a great impact on the court system going forward,” Trump said. The actual number is around 200, but there’s time.
If you’re wondering what all this has to do with why Republicans vote for Trump, here’s a report on what the Republican grandee James Baker thinks about that kind of thing, which has persuaded him to keep voting for Trump despite everything Trump has done to his party, and the abuse Trump threw at George HW Bush, Baker’s closest friend whose feet he rubbed while he died:
Trump also discussed Tuesday’s debate, telling Hegseth he had been preparing every day and saying: “When you’re president, you sort of see everything that they’re going to be asking.
“And they may disagree with you, but we’ve done a great job. We created the greatest economy in history. And now it’s coming back. We closed it. We saved millions and millions of lives by doing what I did. And now we’re bringing it back.”
… and welcome to another day of politics in the US, which in this instance means the fallout from Donald Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court, to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and also the countdown to the first presidential debate, on Tuesday. A countdown and a fallout and it’s not even 9am: the news is explosive these days, after all.
In terms of what’s moving, obviously the polling isn’t yet in terms of what effect Barrett’s nomination, a strict conservative to replace a liberal lion, might have on the presidential race. An ABC News/Washington Post poll out today has Biden 10 points up nationally and the New York Times and Siena College make it eight – which is nice, but as Rick Wilson likes to say, national polls mean nothing. Remember who won the popular vote by nearly 3m in 2016? Not Trump. Remember who won the presidency? Not Hillary Clinton.
The swing state polls show Biden ahead in some, and razor-thin margins in others. Look at Florida, Ohio, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and so on. Keep looking. Whatever Trump might tell you about how he’s going to win New York, or even Virginia where he rallied on Friday night, look where he was rallying on Saturday: Pennsylvania. Not surprising.
Anyway, here’s a sampling of our coverage of the Barrett announcement, for which the White House Rose Garden was tricked out to recall the nomination of RBG. David Smith’s Hamlet-infused sketch, which noted the trolling, follows at the end of this post. Otherwise:
More to come, including more links to polls and remarks from Joe Biden about the supreme court, from Delaware at lunchtime. I also think people should find it as funny as I do that at present the Guardian US Spotlight section features few talking heads, but plenty of stories about buildings and food. Post-punk gag.
Here’s David’s sketch. It’s worth a moment of your time.
Source: The Guardian |NewsColony
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